


Last Man Standing

by Kroki_Refur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-31
Updated: 2007-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kroki_Refur/pseuds/Kroki_Refur
Summary: In the end, Dean got just what he never wanted.
Kudos: 2





	Last Man Standing

In the end, Dean finds the answer in one of Bobby’s books, which he guesses maybe counts as ironic, but he’s not too up on the whole literary analysis or whatever when Sam’s skin is grey, and Dean had never wanted to see that again, _never_.  
  
Sam’s been gone twenty-seven hours and thirteen minutes, and Dean almost doesn’t see it, he’s barely slept since Sam started coughing blood three and a half days ago, and the book’s written in this _fucking_ handwriting that makes Dean want to spring to get the guy who wrote it some of that shitty voice-recognition software or at least a goddamn typewriter for Christ’s sake, so yeah, his eyes slide past the paragraph the first time round, and it’s only luck (not fate, Dean doesn’t believe in fate even though there’s still blood crusted around Sam’s nostrils) that he reads it a second time. In the end, it’s stupidly simple, almost makes Dean want to laugh except that if ever a situation wasn’t funny, it’s this one, right here. He’s done a ritual or two in his time, when he was in a tight spot, and this one, well, the hardest thing about this one is catching the goddamn chicken. Seriously, Dean Winchester, demon hunter extraordinaire, faced down more monsters than freakin Buffy for Christ’s sake, and it takes him forty-five minutes and a lot of undignified falling on his ass to catch a goddamn chicken. It’s lucky there’s no-one in the ruins of Bobby’s place to see.  
  
Except for how really, it’s not lucky at all.  
  
Chicken’s blood is kinda gross, but last time Dean sold his soul to a freakin _demon_ (and he’d do it again this time, too, if the fucking things weren’t refusing to deal with him these days, and come on, of _course_ Dean wasn’t going to keep his word to them, they were _demons_ for Christ’s sake), so a bit of poultry gore on his eyelids and ears is not something that really bothers him. Sam’s been gone twenty-nine hours and thirty-two minutes when Dean finishes the ritual, and Dean’s pretty sure he’s gonna be pissed when he finds out, but he’ll take pissed Sam over no Sam any day of the week. So he stops chanting, and waits, watching the shadows lengthen across the soot-stained floor, black on black, patterns overlaid on patterns until it makes his eyes blur.  
  
Sometime around dusk, Dean goes outside. Bobby’s sitting on the stoop, staring out at the South Dakota night. “You’re an idiot,” he says.  
  
Dean sits down beside him, hope fluttering in his stomach. “I know,” he says.  
  
And they wait.  
  
\----  
  
Sam’s been gone a week and a half, and Ellen startles Dean so much he cuts himself on the knife he’s been sharpening. “You’re an idiot,” she says.  
  
“So they tell me,” Dean says, pressing against the cut to stop the bleeding.  
  
“Just what were you hoping to achieve?” Ellen asks. Dean doesn’t say anything; he thinks that’s pretty freakin obvious.  
  
It’s raining outside, and there’s water coming in through the remains of Bobby’s roof. Dean wonders vaguely whether he should fix it, decides he’ll do it when Sam gets there.  
  
“Didn’t you learn anything last time?” Ellen asks, and that kinda makes Dean smile.  
  
“Yeah,” he says. “I learned that being lonely sucks.” And he’s not even sure why he said that, except he doesn’t talk to many people these days and he’s out of the habit of censoring his thoughts.  
  
“Yeah, well,” says Ellen, “you’ll never be alone again.”  
  
Dean purses his lips. That’s not what he meant.  
  
\----  
  
No-one really comes near Bobby’s place; Dean thinks maybe he’s the only guy to have ever lived on this patch of land. Dean sticks around there, which is kinda dumb, because Sam’s probably got wings and a harp or whatever now, there’s no reason he has to come back here, but on the other hand, Dean wants to make sure he doesn’t miss him, that they find each other (which makes him sound like a goddamn Lifetime movie, typical fucking Sam, even when he’s gone he’s making Dean’s life into one giant let’s-talk-about-our-feelings therapy session). Still, he can’t last forever on what’s left in Bobby’s place, even with hunting animals round about, so when Sam’s been gone four weeks, he goes into town.  
  
The place is full of people, and Dean feels his skin crawling; it’s been a while since he’s been around anyone, really, and all he wants to do is get away. He breaks into a store, takes what he needs and gets out, and he half expects Sam to be waiting for him when he gets back, but the yard is empty, and the house grins against the sky, black and broken.  
  
\----  
  
South Dakota is cold as a penguin's ass in the winter, and Dean wishes, not for the first time, that Bobby lived somewhere like California, or at least freakin Tennessee. Still, something about the freezing air makes the stars brighter, and Dean lies on his back staring up at them, trying not to think.  
  
“Hey Bobby,” he says, and Bobby looks up from whatever it is he’s doing a few feet away.  
  
“What?” he says.  
  
Dean closes his eyes, feels his eyelashes trying to freeze together. Sam’s been gone four and half months. “Is there a heaven?”  
  
Bobby doesn’t answer, and when Dean opens his eyes, he’s just staring. “You’re drunk,” he says.  
  
Dean shrugs. “It’s a fair question,” he says (and yeah, maybe he is drunk, just a little).  
  
Bobby watches him a while, then just shrugs and walks away. And that, Dean thinks, is a fair answer.  
  
\----  
  
“What if he doesn’t come?” asks Ellen when Sam’s been gone eight months.  
  
“He’ll come,” says Dean. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.  
  
“People can go crazy from loneliness, you know,” says Ellen.  
  
Dean takes a swig of his beer – the last he could find in town, and he’ll have to drive over to the next town tomorrow – and thinks _too late for that_.  
  
\----  
  
It’s a year to the day (to the hour, to the minute) when Dean realises Sam isn’t coming, and that’s pretty ironic, too, but if Dean wasn’t waiting around to analyse shit when Sam’s body was still cooling, he’s so far past that it’s not even funny when Sam’s body’s long since rotted and gone, when Sam’s _gone_  
  
He feels them before he sees them, but he’s not ready to talk, he’ll never be ready now. He’s only ready for one thing, and his hands aren’t shaking as he loads his gun.  
  
“What if he’s not there, either?” Ellen asks, and Dean shrugs.  
  
“Then we’ll both be gone,” he says, sliding the magazine home.  
  
“You really think that?” Bobby asks, and he’s standing in front of Dean, God, Dean hates it when he does that, moves faster than ought to be possible. “After all this, _this_ ,” he gestures to himself, to Ellen, to the little girl who sometimes wanders around out past the junkyard and the old guy who sits on thin air in the next field like there’s some kind of stoop there or something, “you think you’re just going to be erased, one bullet and that’s it? People _stick around_ , Dean.”  
  
Dean glares at him, jaw set. “Then where the fuck is Sam?”  
  
Bobby and Ellen exchange looks, and Bobby shakes his head, but Dean doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want to _hear it_ , where’s Sam, where’s fucking _Sam_? He’s gasping before he knows it, gun dropping from numb fingers, and he’s on his knees on the ground, fall again, wet mud soaking through the knees of his jeans and Jesus fucking _Christ_ , he can see them all, every fucker who’s ever died in this goddamn place except the one person he wants.  
  
Ellen’s gone by the time he becomes aware of his surroundings again, but Bobby’s still there, flickering slightly. “Storm’s coming,” he says.  
  
“You always say that,” says Dean.  
  
“I’m always right,” says Bobby. He waits a moment, then says, “you ever think Sam’s the lucky one?”  
  
Dean looks down at his hands, knuckles stained with mud. “Every day,” he says. He feels like nothing’s ever going to be right again, but at the same time he already knew, he’s been waiting and waiting but he’s known for a long time, maybe even a year minus twenty-nine hours and thirty-two minutes. It wasn’t a gradual thing: before the ritual, he only saw the living; afterwards, he saw _everyone_. And there was no Sam.  
  
“I see dead people,” he says, and laughs; yeah, he’s crazy, but he’s funny, right, so it’s all good.  
  
“There are still people who need your help,” Bobby says. “In the south, in Louisiana and Florida. There are still people left.”  
  
“Fucking Florida,” says Dean.  
  
“Dean,” says Bobby. “It’s time to move on.”  
  
“Just--” Dean gestures, doesn’t look up. “Just leave me alone, Bobby, OK?”  
  
When he raises his head, Bobby’s gone.  
  
\----  
  
The good thing about everyone being dead, Dean muses, is that gas is pretty cheap. He wonders if that’s a crazy thing to think, figures it probably is, but hey, he might as well be consistent, right? Anyway, if he’s going to make it down to Louisiana (fuck Florida, Jesus), it’s lucky he can just take what he needs when he needs it (except for how really, it’s not lucky at all). He figures it’ll be a pretty easy trip, as long as he doesn’t get distracted by the dead people.  
  
Bobby’s roof is still leaking when Dean finally walks out of the house for the last time. He’s been the last man alive in South Dakota for three hundred and sixty seven days, seventeen hours and forty-eight minutes.  
  
He revs the engine and doesn’t look back.


End file.
